A Jewish soldier was buried in Kiev on Friday after his body was discovered in the snow in Donetsk where it had been hidden for almost a month

Evgeny “Benya” Yatzina, 25, was a member of the “cyborgs,” the unit that defended the Donetsk airport, Kiev’s only foothold in the rebel capital, until it was overrun in late January, the Forum Daily website reported.

“He was killed on the 20th of January, but his body was found in snow only a few days ago,” said Shimon Briman, Forum Daily’s Israeli and former Soviet Union editor. “The body was transferred to Dnipropetrovsk, and his mother went from Kiev to Dnipropetrovsk for identification.”

Briman said Yatzina had proudly identified as Jewish, greeting his friends by saying shalom and asking that they call him Benya, a “very Jewish nickname in Ukraine” that he shared with oligarch and Dnipropetrovsk regional governor Igor Kolomoisky.